


Guardians

by buckyjerkbarnes



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Gen, agent carter gave me too many feels okay?, and all canon points to howard being a shit dad, and daniel, and i feel like that would NOT fly with peggy AT ALL, and peggy's kids are older, and they love tony too, because she would be the one that Howard dumps his son on when shit gets real, because tony looks at him and sees /him/, daniel would love tony more than anything too, having been born in the late fifties, like ana and jarvis want kids, mentions of alcohol use by howard, not a crip from WWII, oh man, or when he's off fooling around with the nanny of the month, to the avengers, will span from tony's birth
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-05
Updated: 2016-03-06
Packaged: 2018-05-24 19:02:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6163425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buckyjerkbarnes/pseuds/buckyjerkbarnes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony Stark was born May the twenty-ninth, nineteen seventy to Howard and Maria Stark in Long Island, New York.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1969

**Author's Note:**

> This is a project I've been brainstorming for quite a while, now. Honestly, after what I saw on Agent Carter this season and the fact that Peggy and Howard are still on speaking terms in 1989 according to Ant-Man, that when Tony was born, Peggy, Daniel, Jarvis and Ana /didn't/ step up and take care of Tony where Howard and Maria likely did not.

_1969._

_*_

Here's the thing: 

"The words 'Howard Stark' and 'going to be a father' were never meant to be used in the same sentence," Peggy ranted, hands rolled into fists at her side. "Don't get me wrong, the man's one of my closest friends, but never in all of my years have I met someone so full of himself. I mean, this is the fellow who had Jarvis deliver a crate of rubbers to our son on his thirteenth birthday. A  _bloody_ crate!" 

Daniel Sousa reclined on the bed he'd shared with his wife since nineteen forty-nine. He had a paper on his lap, the headline that of the Los Angeles Times which declared: " _ **BABY STARK! STARK INDUSTRIES BILLIONAIRE TO BECOME A FATHER AT FIFTY-THREE!**_ "

Of course, Howard had phoned them prior to the news hitting the presses, drunk as a skunk and only mentioning the impending pregnancy in passing. Last Peg had heard, Stark spent a majority of his time in Washington D.C., designing weapon prototypes that were quietly being tested in a facility in northern Virginia. "Someone's gotta help the boys beat the Viet Cong," the man of the hour proclaimed. "No one else is." Stark's belief of his self-importance had not wavered through time, nor had his signature goatee, more gray than charcoal, now. 

"-and Maria! A kind woman she may be, yes, but she also only has all of two brain cells to rub together." Maria was kind, though, beautiful and kind and terribly baited into Stark's charms. They'd been married for three years. His and Peggy's wedding gift to them had been a particularly hefty bottle of Chardonnay, perhaps not the wisest choice. Peggy hadn't stopped pacing, stalking from one end of their master suite to the other. Daniel's eyes followed her, as though he were watching a tennis match. Her hair was up in curlers, touches of silver she didn't bother to touch up glimmering around her temples, the tube of brilliant red lipstick remained unopened on their bathroom counter more often than not. "She was an only child, Daniel. She has no experience with children, nor does Howard. Blimey, the poor babe will probably be dumped off on some nanny and never know their own parents-" 

That was not a thought that Daniel wished to entertain. 

He chose that moment to interrupt. "Margaret Carter Sousa, look at me."

She faltered at his tone, the turquoise silk of her night robe stilling a few moments after she did. Her bottom lip was worried a deep puce. He held out a hand for her; she was quick to cross the room, climbing onto the mattress and sitting on her haunches to take it. "I'm worried, Daniel," she confessed softly. 

"You shouldn't be, sweetheart," he murmured, reaching out with his free hand to brush his fingertips over her cheek.  _More beautiful everyday, I swear it._ "And do you know why not?" 

Her mouth twisted. Daniel could see she was stamping down on a small, hopeful smile. "I believe you're going to enlighten me despite my answer." 

He offered up a little beam. "You shouldn't worry because whatever happens with Stark and Maria's kid, he or she will have two families to make sure they turn out alright." At the lift to Peggy's eyebrows, Daniel scoffed. "Really, Peg? You don't think Ana's having the exact same conversation with Jarvis across the city? The poor guy's probably having kittens right now." That got a laugh out of her, the image he painted of Jarvis erratically flailing, his speech rapid and near-discernible with mellow-headed Ana plucking the right words needed to soothe him out the air. "And Michael and Steph will be there, too." Michael Jack and Stephanie Angela Sousa, fourteen and nine respectively, had absolutely  _flipped_ when the paper had smacked against the end of their walkway that morning. Michael, practical as Peggy, said in a note of awe and horror: "Uncle Howard's gonna be a  _dad_?" His sister, on the other hand, declared that the Stark  _daughter_ would be her bestest friend- "No offense, Mikey, you know I love you"- in the universe  _ever_. He explained as much to Peg, who'd already swept off to work by then. 

"Oh, you're right, darling," she sighed, shifting forward so her head dropped onto his chest, her legs tangling with his. Just as they'd done for the last decade, his arms slid around her middle, landing on her firm sides. He would never tire of her curves, the edges of his Peg softened by her bright dresses and neat shoes. "But I still can't help think this child will be treated like a science experiment to Howard. I don't want a little boy or girl to have a childhood of  _trial and error_ because two people were so thoroughly irresponsible."

"They won't," Daniel assured her, his nose pressed to her hairline. "We won't allow it." 

"Of course we won't," Peg retorted, fervently, nuzzling closer as the rush of energy that had sped through her veins and fired her up like a wind-up toy drained from her system. "We've got a mission, Chief Sousa, one that we will not fail." A rush of fondness filled him when she broke out his old title. Having been fully aware at how dangerous the field of work he and Peg participated in could be and in an attempt to lower the chances of their child turned children growing up with no parents, he'd taken the bench once Michael had been born. He didn't mind it, being a house-husband. It was actually kind of fun, if a little mundane, but there were far worse places that he could be and Daniel wouldn't trade his position for the world.

To accentuate this point he'd made in silence to himself, Daniel lifted his head long enough to press a warm kiss to her mouth, smiling along the warm seam of her lips, and managed to maneuver them both beneath the blankets. He left the light on beside their bed. "I'm ready when you are, Director Sousa."

"You're a sap," she murmured, hand sneaking under his white sleep shirt and splaying on his belly. He kissed her one more time, on the forehead, and tightened the hold he had on her. 

"Takes one to know one." 

With a bump void of heat to his shoulder, the flat of her hand Peggy's weapon of choice, they settled down into a deep doze. They'd talk more in the morning, when everything would seem more optimistic. 

 


	2. 1970, pt. I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peggy's voice rose to cover his, to assert her dominance in this conversation. She found his foot under the table, covered it with hers and applied enough pressure to make him wince despite her feet being bare and his being clad in expensive leather loafers. "is going to need a set of parents who have some iota of an idea of what it is they are doing, a reliable source of comfort in this world. You and Maria both have jobs, yes, and they are important jobs to you, but don't treat your son or daughter like they are one of your experiments, to be dragged through trials and errors and studied like a dancing money. Do not handle them like they are an investment to be put into your company. Listen to them, care for them, but by God don't you dare ignore them simply because becoming a father was not in your itinerary for the later years of your life." 
> 
> Howard hadn't made eye-contact with her since she began to speak. He raised his hands to cover his face, exhaling loudly into his palms before rubbing his fingers roughly in his eyes. "Have you been practicing that in the mirror the last eight and a half months or did you just spit that out?"

_1970._

_*_

Jack dropped by quietly on a Tuesday in March while Peggy was at work. Daniel came downstairs and found him nursing a cup of coffee and filling in the crossword from the morning paper. “You son of a bitch,” Daniel said by means of surprised greeting.

He was given a slanted grin for his troubles. “You love my mother, Sousa: I have enough respect not to insult yours.”

Daniel limped over, clapping his old friend in a brief hug, slapping his shoulder once more before stepping away. “Do I even want to know how you got into my house?” Before even he and Peg had moved in together, he’d put more than one lock on the door, bolted the windows, the whole kit and caboodle after the whole affair where Vernon Masters sent his boys to literally beat Daniel into submission.

Jack snorted and that was answer enough. They sank down into seats at the kitchen table, Daniel in his typical spot, Jack in the place he’d been occupying. “How’s Carter?”

He couldn’t help the way his eyes narrowed at Peggy’s surname. “Well,” Daniel supplied. “We’re taking the kids to New York to see her friend Angie on Broadway in a month if the world doesn’t end.”

Another snort.“With the Soviets up our ass? Heh, yeah, that’s likely to happen.”

“How’s Washington?”

Jack downed a mouthful of his coffee, considering the next word in the puzzle. He’d already slashed through the Across section. “The Department of Defense is, well. It’s not the SSR, that’s for damn sure." Beneath the table, Jack's leg kicked out lightly at Daniel's prosthetic. "How's that Stark limb working out for you?" 

Sometime during the late fifties, Daniel had began to develop early signs of arthritis in his hands from constantly curling his fingers around his old metal crutch, back aching with minor scoliosis and his stub of a leg constantly florid and irritated by his artificial limb. Stark, surprisingly, had noticed. The guy had swept in like winter in New York- abruptly, just after a warm day where fall seemed as though it would stick around longer than normal, and pulled out a measuring tape. He'd gone for the lower-most part of Daniel's stub, measuring the full length of his bone and flesh leg with and without a shoe on, and was gone just as quick. Two days later, in the middle of the night, a box arrived in a Stark Industries van bearing Daniel's new digs. It had fit like a glove, bending almost like a real leg would, sleeker and less stiff than the military-issue plastic number. 

In a word- "Good. So long as I don't get it wet, it's fine." 

The small talk was something swell, sure, but Jack didn't just make house calls. He'd not been heard from since Christmas, two years ago. "Why'd you come here today, Jack? Are the Russians  _that_ loaded with nuclear technology?" At Jack's look of faintly concealed surprise, Daniel could only roll his eyes. "Oh, come on, Jack. I'm not a fool: Peggy keeps me in the loop when there's a chance our  _children_ could be hurt. Seriously, though. What's eating you?" 

Jack always had been a difficult man to decipher, even more of an enigma after he scored a big gig in DC and was constantly around other enigmas who shared their enigma tricks to keep people like Daniel and even folk on Peggy's level of intelligence from guessing down to the last millisecond. But he wrote in another word- synonym for crazy, four letters: nuts- and twirled the pen he'd plucked from the little engagement calendar hanging on the wall near the back door. He smiled. "Can't a guy just drop in and see an old pal?" 

 _Don't press_ , was the underlying message. Daniel lived with Peggy goddamn Carter for Christsakes: he knew how to stamp down on curiosity when it came to a case he didn't have a clearance level high enough to access. (Normally, though, she shared anyway without his askance. Daniel didn't mind shouldering her burdens- her bones were made of brimstone and steel with marrow of liquid gold, but she was not Atlas: if he could, he wished to prevent her from taking on the world's weight.) 

"Sure he can," Daniel assured him, brushing a hand over his hair to try and tame the wild waves earned from, ahem, a good night of loving with the missus. The elephant in the room must be something big if Jack hadn't gone and teased him for looking like he'd rolled out the sack with a tornado yet. "You should stay till the kids get home from school. Steph misses you.” 

Jack’s face immediately went all soft and goopy. It was a bit unsettling. “Ah, what can I say: I miss my little ladybug, too. Michael doing alright?”

"You'd have heard if he wasn't, Jack," Daniel assured him. "He's top of the class- hates Algebra, but who doesn't?" 

They both shared a laugh. "He started the whole 'I'm-a-moody-teenager-and-I-hate-everybody' show yet?" Jack's eyes blew open comically wide, like he'd just had a ground-breaking realization. "Oh man, you're going to be in for it. With a lady as stubborn as Marge as their Ma and a bull-headed streak like yours? Why am I worried about the Russians? I should be putting out an alert on your house!" 

Daniel groaned, unable to stamp down on a chuckle. He was, however, able to muster up a glower that had Jack cracking up again. "He's not one for dramatics. He's getting curious, though. Peg got hurt real bad a few months ago- the Sacramento case," Daniel explained. Jack's expression darkened: the Sacramento case, code-named  _Dust_  had involved a gang with unknown origins that was attempting to pilfer recovered HYDRA guns with the ability to rip a person apart down to the atom that were being quietly transported from upstate California all the way to Dallas. The machinery was being held in plain white moving trucks as to seem inconspicuous. A mole had snitched, gave up the license plate numbers. The drivers were killed and the weapons momentarily taken, until Peggy moved in with one of her junior agents, a Nicolas J. Fury, who she took a bullet to the calf for. Nick had carried her where a van of their own had been laying in wait. Fast-forward to when she hobbled in through the door in the middle of the night, Nick still a steady support at her side and Daniel bursting up from the couch to help patch her up further.

Somehow, he'd completely missed Michael loitering at the top of the stairs where he'd waiting for them. The moment he heard his mother's agonized cry when the gauze packed into her bullet wound were tugged out, he'd pounced down the stairs. Michael bled worry immediately at the sight of his mother's injury, at the strange, imposing young man in their living room: "You don't work for the phone company, Mom."

"He's fifteen now," Jack said when Daniel filled him in. "If you both just explain to him that Marge has a government job that's real hush-hush..." 

Daniel scuffed a hand over his face, huffing. "See, this is how I know you're not a father, Jack. You sit a kid down and tell them something's 'hush-hush' they're going to hound you until they know everything." 

Jack scratched down one of the final words of his puzzle, muttering something below his breath about how Daniel was a fussy little house husband. A bit of under the table handiwork had his titanium limb landing home right at Jack's knee, absolutely relishing in the yelp of surprise and sudden pain. "Well they're going to find out eventually," Jack exclaimed. "Jeez, Sousa, you should get back in the field with that thing. A real good kick in Brezhnev's pants and we'd win the war!" 

With a little, mirthless laugh, Daniel wondered: "Which war? Uncle Sam's gone and stuck his star-spangled boots in so many, I've began to lose track."

 

-

 

"Do you think Mr. Jarvis will make those wonderful snicker-doodles of his?" Stephanie wondered, eyes wide and hopeful. She'd been sent  _three_ containers filled with nibbles of the same sort for her birthday back in February and had been nearly insatiable since. 

Peggy hummed. "I don't know," she said, knowing fully well Jarvis would whip up a batch even if he had to slip out in the middle of the party to purchase such ingredients. "We'll have to wait and see. Now please sit still, dear: your French braid is going to be tilted if you keep wriggling about." 

"Sorry, Momma," she said, not sounding sorry at all. Peggy gave a laugh, tugging the end of Steph's braid fondly. 

"The snark that comes out of you," Peggy marveled, her ears perking at the unmistakable sound of Daniel coming downstairs. 

"I get it from you, Momma," Stephanie declared, angelic sweet and perfectly innocent. "Daddy says so." 

Her eyebrows rose, mouth twitching. "Does he now?" 

Daniel appeared in the doorway. "Daddy does what now?" 

"Have you been telling our daughter she gets her witty mouth from me?" Peggy prompted, voice serious, eyes shining with playful mirth. "I mean, you're absolutely correct, but..." 

He swooped in to steal a kiss, freshly brushed teeth nipping lightly at her lower lip. He only got away with it because Peggy's hands were still holding Steph's hair in place. She moved back in for one peck, two pecks, three, before he squeezed at her hip and bent to smack a kiss on the top of Stephanie's hair. "Don't you have a baby shower to go to? Schmoozing to do, rich people finger food to wrap up in napkins and bring home to your starving husband?" 

"Yes, we do," Peggy confirmed, picking up speed with her plait and tying it off with a silk blue ribbon that matched the fluffy skirt of Steph's dress. Stephanie had the same sort of hair as Peggy; thick, brown and wavy, leaving Michael to have Daniel's slightly wavy, touch darker tresses, perpetually wild and incapable of being tamed first thing in the morning before a bit of pomade was smeared on and everything laid neatly. "Now come on, love. Show Daddy your pretty dress."

Stephanie hopped up, dutifully giving Daniel a couple of spins to show off the baby blue cotton, her shiny black shoes, the lace socks. Both of Daniel's arms crept out, one going around Peggy's middle, the other gently pulling Stephanie to him. They stood in a warm hug for a moment, perfectly happy to be smothered with warm, Daniel-scented affection. "My best girls. I'm afraid to let you leave, now. Boys all over the city will be knocking down our door to get at the two of you." 

"You've still got me if they are taken, Dad!" Michael called from the living room. 

Peggy pressed a laugh into Daniel's shoulder. "We really must be going, darling. I don't want to leave poor Ana alone to battle the-," her voice went posh and nasal, pointedly American. "-best that Hollywood can offer." 

And honestly, once Peggy had said her goodbyes to Daniel and Michael, loading brightly wrapped gifts into the car and making sure Stephanie was safely buckled in, making the twenty minute drive to the Stark mansion, that was precisely what they were met with. The driveway was cluttered with glossy automobiles fresh out the factory, many of which, Peggy noted, had the unmistakable Stark Industries logo printed on their grill. The party was around back around the pool, a lengthy table for gifts and another, less lengthy set up for food and fine wine. There was, Peggy found with a smile, a dozen of Stephanie's favorite juice boxes sitting on ice. 

Stephanie left Peggy long enough to lay their gifts down on the table, walking straight-backed and proud like a big girl there and back. Peggy, proud, pecked her on the the head as Daniel had. 

She spared only a moment to search the crowd ladies that had assembled for the occasion, and found she knew none of them by name. Peggy did, however, recognize over half the guests being actresses from Stark film industry, all of whom glowered in a particular direction without trying to be sly about it. That was how she located Maria.

"Hullo, Peggy!" Mrs. Stark greeted, blinding white grin and impeccably applied makeup delicately in place. At twenty-nine, her hair was fawn brown, curled neatly and held in place with golden pins, irises the color of the Caribbean Sea at the height of a sunny day. Howard had met her during a fashion show in Paris where she'd been modeling for Chanel. Her belly was swollen with eight months of pregnancy, and it was likely due to her days on the cat-walk that she didn't even wobble in her four-inch heels. She and Peggy exchanged a brief squeeze, pecking each other's cheeks like a couple of heiresses. Upon pulling away, Maria exclaimed happily: "And Stephanie! How big you've gotten! Such a pretty dress!"

Flushing, Stephanie beamed a gap-toothed beam. "Thank you, Aunt Maria," she said politely. "Can I say hello to the baby?" 

Maria had gotten the same request four months ago when she was just starting to show and easily agreed to it a second time. Stephanie released Peggy's hand, carefully cupping the bottom of Maria's belly and placing her other hand on the left side. She tipped an ear to the natural globe. "Hello, little friend," her daughter murmured. "We bought you  _so_ many gifts. I hope you like mine the most. I think you will- it's pink and has  _glitter._ " 

Lightly, Maria patted Stephanie's back. "He's been awfully fussy today- don't be surprised if he kicks." 

"He?" Peggy inquired. 

" _He_?" Stephanie exclaimed, shooting Maria's belly a betrayed look. 

"Hm, yes," Maria said, smiling her up-in-the-clouds smile that had tabloids, cruelly, labeling her as an airhead. "I feel like it's a boy. Couldn't you tell with Michael?"

 _No_ , Peggy thought, nodding at Maria anyway with a curl of her mouth. "I could. I suppose it was mother's intuition." 

 "Yes," Maria agreed, nodding, turning her face down to watch as Stephanie gave her belly a smacking kiss and a tender pat. "That's exactly what it is. I've been searching for the name and could never find it- Howard was no help when I asked him about it." She didn't sound so upset about this statement. Peggy, suddenly, wanted to pull the woman into a hug. 

Eyes still had not left Maria, had began to stick to Peggy and Steph, too. She reached for her daughter, curling a protective arm around her thin shoulders. "You've got fans waiting," Peggy joked lightly, "we'll not hold you up. Besides, this one's been on the prowl for snicker doodles since she woke up yesterday." 

With the dismissal, Maria embraced Peggy again, more firmly this time, as though she didn't wish for Peggy to part from the conversation, and even stooped to give Stephanie a hug, too. She looked faintly bemused when Stephanie stood on the tips of her toes and ghosted an affectionate little peck to her cheek, hand rising to touch lightly at the place. "I'll catch up with you both later, yes?" 

That left Peggy to follow behind as Stephanie scampered off in the direction of the house, streaking right for the kitchen as she knew this to be the most obvious place that Jarvis would be. 

She didn't miss one of Howard's actresses, a woman called Bailey Fell, call Maria a floozy, a gold-digger and a buffoon all in one breath, those gathered around her nodding in agreement, throwing in horrible names of their own and earning ugly laughs out of each other as they continued wining and dining on the Stark’s dime. She only just repressed the urge to, ahem, accidentally stash one of the knives she kept on her person in her hand and walk close enough to snag the fine silk of the woman's low-cut sundress. She channeled the reserve she'd had to thoroughly practice during those early days at the SSR office, when her only real use to the men was taking lunch orders, looking pretty, and keeping silent, knowing full well that, in time, karma would catch up to Bailey and rip her a new one. 

By the time Peggy actually made it into the kitchen, Stephanie had already made her rounds and was situated on Ana's lap, the redheads slim arms wrapped snugly around Steph from behind, rounded chin perched on her daughter's shoulder. 

Unsurprisingly, a tin of snicker doodles was popped open at Steph's elbow. 

"Peg!" Rose Samberly, nee Roberts, greeted warmly, immediately diving in for an embrace.  

"Omph! Hello, Rose!" Peggy returned, just as warm. "How are you? Is Samberly well?" 

Rose rolled her eyes, fond at the very mention of her bumbling husband. "As good as we can be," she said. "He tried to use a potato to power a light-bulb last week, though. The cat and I were very concerned." 

Seeing as Rose was the proud mother of a flat-faced tabby and Samberly was often getting up to the odd science experiment or five, Peggy was not in the least bit surprised.

"-for making these, Mr. Jarvis," Stephanie was saying, grinning up at Jarvis hugely. Jarvis lightly booped her on the nose with the wooden spoon he was holding, eliciting a giggle out of her. 

"How could I not?" Jarvis wondered. "I knew my favorite house guest was coming and I simply had to ensure she received the finest of treatment." 

"I'm your favorite?" Stephanie breathed. She kicked her feet excitedly, jostling Ana, who didn't look the least bit perturbed. "I can't wait to rub it in Michael's face! You heard Mr. Jarvis, didn't you, Mom?" 

That sent her old friend flailing. "Now, Ms. Sousa-"

“So how about the crowd out there, huh?” Rose asked, real quiet, so only Peggy and she could hear.

Peggy made a noise of distaste. “I think I swallowed two bottles worth of perfume just walking through them.”

“Oh, me? I came in through the front, got here real early to give Maria my best before the wax figures out there could come and spew their _greetings_ at her.” Rose hesitated, glancing from Jarvis to Ana to Stephanie then away, sparing a digit to press her glasses further up her nose, to busy her hands. “The things they say… like they think she doesn’t hear them…”

“I know,” Peggy said, just as soft. “She’s a good woman. The rest are just rich and angry they’re not the ones with a golden, Stark-made wedding ring on their finger.”

Rose sighed. “They’re not missing anything.”

“Except a multi-billion dollar inheritance if Howard happened to keel over,” Peggy muttered darkly. This was one of the things Peggy respected Maria for where she had never in any of the other women in Howard’s life: Maria genuinely loved Howard for _Howard_ , for his scientific ramblings and his charming smile and his limitless knowledge on how things work and can work again with a bit of application. The material things were just bonuses. Of course, the gossip rags didn’t know this, never failing to step on Maria’s good name in an off-handed paragraph dispersed in an article concerning Howard’s latest vacation or business venture.

The slurs Bailey had opted for were the ones used most frequently. Though Maria always had an air of being carefree and un-bothered and Ana had quietly set out on a mission to scan through any and all magazines and newspapers before they arrived at Maria’s bedside to be read, to ensure no such slanders reached her, Maria was perfectly aware of how the world perceived her. She had to be.

“Mom?” Stephanie asked, serving to immediately brighten the somber mood Peggy had put herself in. She’d jumped off Ana’s lap, smiling when Rose squeezed her shoulder. “Can I go and bring Aunt Maria some of these cookies?”

“Of course,” Peggy said, watching her rush back towards the pool with a trio of cookies wrapped up in a napkin, braid swish-swishing behind her.

“What a little darling,” Ana sighed, fond.  

Their conversation revolved around the same song and dance that it had been since the news hit the press so many months ago. Howard and Maria shouldn’t be bringing this baby into the world; worries were spread thick all around; Jarvis had chewed one of his fingernails into a quick two days ago and had to walk about with a large white bandage covering it; Ana had been furiously knitting, hoping to get a baby blanket made before the Stark child was delivered; Rose would personally see that Howard got a nice kick to the pants if he tried to pull any funny business once the baby was born. Funny business being his continued affairs with various women and alcohol.

“Yes, well,” Jarvis said, lofty and trying his best to seem disinterested. “You know what they say about old dogs and their tricks…”

She'd been following her daughter's movements through the clean window, how she occasionally stopped when one of the more kind women noticed her, bashfully holding fists of her dress, darting from the table of snacks to Maria. Steph had always held a special place for Maria in her heart: she had, after all, been the flower girl at the Stark wedding.

“I think having a baby will mellow him out,” Ana declared optimistically.

Stephanie stopped, her back shooting into a straight line.

“Let us hope that is the case, dear,” Jarvis replied, lifting the whisk from his metal bowl to test the consistency of whatever it is he’d been whipping up.

Her daughter twisted abruptly on her heal, stalking through the assorted gaggles of ladies and pushing her way up to Bailey, fists curled and smoke practically rolling out of her ears. “Damn it,” Peggy cursed, flying through the kitchen door and out into the sunshine, Ana and Rose on her heals with Jarvis not too far behind at her sudden burst of movement.

Each of Steph’s steps was punctuated by a pointed  _click-click_ of her shoes. "Oh no," Jarvis said faintly upon noticing the path she was treading, eyes big and too blue in his face. "Oh no, no, no, no..." 

They arrived in time for Stephanie stop when she was nearly standing on Bailey's feet, fuming and red-cheeked and ready for a fist fight. Stephanie jabbed a hard finger at the woman's belly. "-that about my aunt Maria! She's a beautiful lady and is ten million-billion times better than you will ever be! You've got no right to-!" 

"Easy," Peggy said, smoothly plucking Stephanie up and carting her off before small fists could be swung and lawsuits could be filed. "Easy, darling. I know. Oh, darling, I  _know_." 

Stephanie deflated the moment she was in her mother's arms, sniffling into Peggy's neck. She was too big to be carried, but Peggy hauled her back into the kitchen to sit her down on the lip of the counter, brushing her fingers over trembling cheeks. "That mean lady deserves to be pushed in the pool," Stephanie fumed through her thin trail of tears. "The things she said about Aunt Maria, Momma! If she would have said those things about you, Daddy would have let me push her in  _three times_." 

"Oh you poor dear," Rose said quietly from her right. "I'll get her for you, sweetheart. Your Mom and I will take turns."

"I'll have a go, too," Jarvis piped, loitering by the window to serve as further look-out.

"And me," Ana agreed gently, appearing at Peggy’s left and covering one of Stephanie’s hands with one of hers. “That makes four times.”

"Maria pays no mind to those ugly words," Peggy told Stephanie with a sad little smile. "They are hurtful, yes, but she isn't hurt by them. It’s all sticks and stones.”

“But words do hurt her, Mom. You didn’t see her face!” Quite out of the blue, Peggy was reminded of Steve, of his pure righteousness and desire to do the right thing, even if he was small and people over-looked him. Not for the first time that day, her heart seized in a fit of emotion.

“Well as much as I know Maria appreciates you coming to her defense, that foul woman you nearly ripped apart will not hesitate to drag you into court.” 

Stephanie’s mouth parted, upper lip touching bottom in a spluttering beat of surprise. “Uncle Howard would hire a bunch of lawyers to defend me!” 

An amazed laughed worked its way out of Peggy. “You’ve got me, there, sweetheart.” 

“Let’s Bailey Fell _consider_ going after Ms. Sousa. She’ll have more than a procession of the East coast’s finest attorneys to deal with,” Jarvis said, popping up behind his wife and offering the tin of snicker-doodles for Stephanie to grab at. “You did an honorable thing.” 

“You did,” Rose agreed. “Very honorable.” 

As much as Peggy wanted to twist around, mutter below her breath that this was no such advice to give to a child- a virtual sponge of information still putting her feelers out into the world, she couldn’t make her mouth move to form such reprimands. 

What left her was this: “Honorable, indeed.” 

(On the way out, after sitting through cake and baby-related games and Maria’s careful opening of the small truck load of gifts, their little procession of five went past the swimming pool, where the socialites and the women of old money and false girls of the screen hadn't faltered in their chatting. Rose broke off, though, bumping her way through the assembled women and pausing thoughtfully near Bailey. "Oh dear!" She remarked loudly. "My shoe is untied!"

Rose abruptly bent at the waist, pushing out her backside so she slammed directly into Bailey's center of balance. The woman's arms pin-wheeled, her obnoxiously tall heals catching on the concrete and pushing her backward. It was rather like observing a tree falling after its trunk had been severed, only with more shrill yelling and less well-muscled men shouting, "Timber!"

(Jarvis, below his breath, said this.)

"I think it's time I head home," Rose announced, straightening and smoothing out her dress. She stopped only long enough to tug Maria into a tight, Rose-esque embrace, and power-walked away without ever turning backward to observe the scene in the pool or those gathered around the pool's edges or the photographer who was snapping away at the thick streams of makeup running together on Bailey's face.

"Us, too," Peggy said, unable to hide a grin. "Come on, love. Let's go home and tell Daddy everything while it's still fresh, yes?"

Before they filed out the back gate, she saw Maria smiling behind her pale curtain of hair. Stephanie had a spring in her step.)

_

 

It was the war that had made Peggy a light sleeper and it was everything after that cemented such a thing into her body's biology.

Daniel had the same problem, too, which was why when the sound of a car coming to an abrupt, break-squealing halt in their driveway had the both of them snapping awake. 

"Gun," Peggy said, immediately on the move the same time Daniel uttered, "Kids." He had the process of sliding on his prosthesis down to less than fifteen seconds, breaking off down the hall with a loaded weapon of his own the same time Peggy was taking the stairs, a small handgun tucked against her palm. She'd pulled on a night robe over her shift, putting her weight on the balls of her feet to make less noise as she descended into the entryway. She padded noiselessly into the living room, tugging aside a mere centimeter of curtain to assess the threat- 

"Bloody buggering  _Christ_ ," she grumbled, letting the curtain fall back into place.

The headlights to Howard's new, sapphire blue roadster were bright and blaring directly into her front room, its driver stumbling out the cab and making his way up to the front door. He did not, thankfully, have a bottle of anything in hand. Peggy, thoroughly irritated, tucked her gun into the faux-flower display near the front door, hissing lowly up the stairs to Daniel: "It's Howard." 

Daniel's head popped from around the corner. Even in the low light, she saw his exasperated bemusement in the furrow to his brows, the way he planted a hand on his hip. "What? Why?" 

"Does he ever have a reason for anything that he does?" Peggy wondered, still at a whisper. 

Her husband grunted his agreement. "Do you want me to come down?" 

She flicked her eyes to the door, knowing full well she needed to grab it before Howard rang the doorbell and woke the kids or started hammering loudly enough to wake all of the neighbors. Hell, half of them were probably up as it was, given those damned headlights. "No, I'll handle him. Get some rest for me- I should be up in a bit." 

He nodded. "Love you, Peg." 

Just as she always did when he uttered those words, her knees threatened to turn to mush, a smile immediately taking residence on her face. "And I you, my darling." 

That's when the knocking started. She shooed Daniel away, shooting to undo the deadbolt and the chain, jerking the door open and nearly taking a fist to the face from where Howard was still going about executing little knocking motions. "Peg!" he boomed. "What a coincidence! You're up, too?" 

Peggy hauled him in by the shirt collar, half his buttons undone, one of them missing altogether. "I'm only awake because you disturbed the peace of the entire neighborhood. And can you please have a little courtesy? Michael has a huge math test in the morning and Steph's just getting over a stomach bug." 

"Sure thing, Peg, I'll be quiet!" Howard declared in a voice that was most certainly  _not_ quiet. 

Her hand slapped over his mouth. She invaded his personal space. "Lower. Your.Voice." 

"Mmmmmhma mmm mm mm m oo mm cmm," he said into her palm, eyes heavy-hooded and brow waggling. Howard's shoulders jumped with a hiccup.

She considered him for a moment before she carefully pulled her hand away. "What was that?" Peggy asked, haltingly.

"I  _said_  I'm having a  _special_ feeling with you this close to me." 

Peggy threw up her hands, sucking her teeth in aggravation. "You are fifty three years old, Howard," she hissed, tugging him into the kitchen to get him a glass of water in the hopes of sobering him up. "You're too old to be running around overly intoxicated in the middle of the night. What about your wife, hmm? Does Jarvis know where you are?”

He practically flopped into a chair at the table, hands fisting in the lace tablecloth by means of being grounded. “Eddy-dear doesn’t approve of my, heh, suckling of the fire water. Says since I’m going to be a father, I should sober up.”

She plucked a glass from the cupboard over to the right of the sink, going about filling it up with lukewarm tap water. “He’s not wrong, Howard.”

He groaned, face planting. His voice met her ears muffled. “Ugh, not you too, Peg.”

She set her mouth into an unimpressed line. If he kept up with such a loud volume, he’d have Michael down and shooting off twenty questions in a jiffy, Stephanie close behind despite her recovering illness: she had no doubt Daniel was still loitering in the stairway, listening, waiting to see if he needed to intervene and guide Howard carefully back to the direction of his mansion. “Yes, me too, Howard." 

"Maria's so sure that we're having a boy," Howard pressed. "I don't know how she knows but she's  _positive._ She wants to call him Anthony after her little brother." 

"That's a lovely name," Peggy said, sitting the water down at Howard's elbow. "Have you considered any?"

He didn't lift his head. He kept making direct communications with the fine oak of her table. "I haven't entertained the thought. I told Maria she could name the baby whatever she'd like." 

“You mean you didn’t even give her any parameters?” This was surprising to Peggy, giving this was the man who’d quarreled over the name of the device that would finally eliminate Whitney Frost during the whole incident with Zero Matter. Howard was in his golden years, now: Peggy had no disillusions that the child Maria carried would be the only one Howard would likely have.  _The least he could do_ , Peggy thought with tired distaste,  _was act as though he cared._

She could sense rather than see Howard’s all-mighty eye roll. “You’re just like the tabloids: all of them think she’s dumber than a box of rocks but she’s not. She’s very smart, just not smart like me and you. My mind works in numbers and scientific formulas. You, Peg? You work in missions, in careful processes. But Maria? Maria operates through process of emotion. Give her a nice dress? Happy. Take her dancing? Ecstatic.”

Peggy couldn’t help but wonder: “When’s the last time you’ve been around to actually do those things for her, Howard?”

He finally sat up, using the table as his crutch. He looked, impossibly, more intoxicated than before with his hair a mess and his eyes red and blotchy. “I’m moving back to New York. We’ve got a nice set-up in Manhattan. One street over from where I sat you and that knock-out brunette up in.”

“Her name is Angie,” Peggy said, making a mental note to call her friend sometime during the week. “And why the sudden desire to move? You’re settled out here- Mr. and Mrs. Jarvis are settled out here.”

“I’ve met a new business partner,” Howard explained. “He’s really going to help in my expanding corporation.”  

As though the Stark empire didn't have footholds in every major industrial city in the United States with factories springing up in London, Paris, Rome, Budapest and so on. As though he were just starting out. As though whoever this man was could help boost him to a status symbol higher than his god-like name of the present. "Who is he?"

"Stane," Howard said. "Obadiah Stane."

If Peggy were not so exhausted, she very much would not have said: "He sounds like a biblical arsehole."

Howard snorted, mustache quivering. "He's young, but he's ambitious. Very good with numbers and public resources nightmares, too. Did you hear about the bomb that went off in Manhattan? A block from Times Square?"

Her spine shot straight, caught off-guard from such news. "No, I most certainly did not."

" _That's_ how good he is." 

Peggy relaxed, only marginally. Howard was swaying slightly in his chair, as though he was debating between collapsing back against the table and falling out his seat all-together. Now, she supposed, was the best time to strike: he was in her house, on her territory, and in his state, he likely could not locate the door. She'd have no trouble covering his mouth again if he tried to interrupt her. "Every parent has their own means of taking care of their children. For example, when Michael was first born and he got into trouble as a little babe, Daniel would let him off easy and it was I who took on the role of bad cop. I didn't agree with it, but he and I worked it out and learned to play equal parts good and bad. 

"Your child is going to be born in less than a month-"

"-a week and a half, by my calculation," Howard muttered. 

"-and that child," Peggy's voice rose to cover his, to assert her dominance in this conversation. She found his foot under the table, covered it with hers and applied enough pressure to make  him wince despite her feet being bare and his being clad in expensive leather loafers. "is going to need a set of parents who have some iota of an idea of what it is they are doing, a reliable source of comfort in this world. You and Maria both have jobs, yes, and they are important jobs to you, but don't treat your son or daughter like they are one of your experiments, to be dragged through trials and errors and studied like a dancing money. Do not handle them like they are an investment to be put into your company. Listen to them, care for them, but by God don't you  _dare_ ignore them simply because becoming a father was not in the itinerary for the later years of your life." 

Howard hadn't made eye-contact with her since she began to speak. He raised his hands to cover his face, exhaling loudly into his palms before rubbing his fingers roughly in his eyes. "Have you been practicing that in the mirror the last eight and a half months or did you just spit that out?"  

"Oh for-" She couldn't help it, really. He'd not touched the glass of water she'd kindly put out for him and Peggy did not attempt to put a lid on the urge to pluck up the glass and chuck the contents directly in Howard's face. 

He'd lowered his hands the same time her blow hit. The product in his hair kept the salt and pepper stands neatly styled. He blinked, stupidly, in mild surprise as rivets of water dripped down his chin and discolored his wrinkled slacks. The schmuck in her midst let out a sigh so deeply, she bet ears were perking across the country on Wall Street and muttered, resigned: “I suppose I deserved that.”

“And so much more,” she said, cheerful as she could manage for three in the morning, which was to say not cheerful in the least.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tony shall be arriving in the next chapter, I promise!  
> A few things:  
> -Fury is only eighteen at the point he was mentioned.  
> -Reference as how to how I imagine [Maria Stark](http://www.forgottenhollywood.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Diana_Dill_2014-04-20_09-06.jpg%20//) except with longer hair, down just past her shoulders.  
> -Photo of little [Steph and Michael](http://marvelcinematicuniverse.wikia.com/wiki/Peggy_Carter?file=Peggy%2527s_family.png), as seen in 2014 beside Peg's bedside  
> -Also! Paris Fashion Week was not established until 1973, but Howard just going out and meeting a random actress in Hollywood didn't appeal to me. 
> 
> Feel free to hit me up on [Tumblr](http://sgtbxrnes.co.vu)!

**Author's Note:**

> I can't promise when the next update will be, but I'll try to aim for Saturdays! Have a good night, all!


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